Laredo TX soon to be the largest city in the country without a bookseller as B. Dalton closes

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Chapter closing on lone Laredo bookstore
Texas city soon to be the largest in the country without a bookseller

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34452179/ns/business-retail/



The B. Dalton Book Store at the Mall del Norte in Laredo, Texas, will close Jan. 16. After that, the nearest bookstore will be 150 miles away in San Antonio.

LAREDO, Texas - The final chapter has been written for the lone bookstore on the streets of Laredo.

With a population of nearly a quarter-million people, this city could soon be the largest in the nation without a single bookseller.

The situation is so grim that schoolchildren have pleaded for a reprieve from next month's planned shutdown of the B. Dalton bookstore. After that, the nearest store will be 150 miles away in San Antonio.

The B. Dalton store was never a community destination with comfy couches and an espresso bar, but its closing will create a literary void in a city with a high illiteracy rate. Industry analysts and book associations could not name a larger American city without a single bookseller.

"Corporate America considers Laredo kind of the backwater," said the city's most prolific author, Jerry Thompson, a professor at Texas A&M University International who has written more than 20 books.

[arcadian]

1. BDaltons and Waldens were the staple at every mall.

Now you go to malls and there are no book stores.

[Kutjara]

10. I used to get really disappointed if the only bookstore in a mall...

was B. Dalton or (worse) Waldenbooks. They were the real "lowest common denominator" bookstores, full of nothing but bestsellers, new-age fakery, 15-minute-famer biographies, and cut-price remainders. Unfortunately, their race to the bottom backfired, because they went so low-brow their target market was people who don't like books.

[XemaSab]

2. Depressing

When I lived near Yosemite I used to go to Fresno once a month and blow a wad on books.

We have a Barnes and Noble here, but I do a lot of book shopping online. :(

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. I called Barnes and Noble about a book yesterday...

...I may or may not want to buy it, because I checked it out from the local library, and I don't know if I enjoyed it enough to want to own it, or if I'll just check it out again if I want to read it again.

Anyway...the book has a $20 list price. Amazon sells it for $13. When I called Barnes & Noble, they told me they're selling it for $20, the full list price.

The same thing happened at Tower Records...I'd go there and see a new CD for $19.95, and if I wanted it, I'd come home and order it from Amazon for half the price.

The Tower Records on Bascom in Campbell, where I used to shop, is now a discount pet food store.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

4. I have to drive eighty miles to a Kibbles & Bits (B&N)

Hate being that far from decent shopping and culture.

Love having room for gardening, and being able to see the Milky Way at night, even though there are some streetlights around.

[kentauros]

5. That's what shopping online is for.

:P

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

8. Seriously....

A four-hour roundtrip drive just to buy a book?

Geez...

[proteus_lives]

6. How awful!

[dembotoz]

7. Books are wonderful things

althogh I must admit i do not venture into bookstores as often as i used to.
My favorite method to obtain books is to go the a library used book sale and get
me a shopping bag full.
This is very sad.

[tigereye]

9. I've been wondering if the closing of some chain bookstores will lead to a

resurgence of independents... maybe that's naive, though. :shrug:

[Jkid]

14. Not going to happen.

[tigereye]

16. niche small book stores do really well here, as do used bookstores

time will tell.

The B and N here is closing at the end of the month (after it drove the nearby indies out of business). Something (well, Amazon?) will take it's place. People still like to handle the books. The problem was that B and N often didn't have the books I wanted in stock and I often had to order them from Amazon (or go to the library, nothing wrong with that, either) to get them in time.

[quakerboy]

11. Not true.

http://local.yahoo.com/results?stx=bookstore&csz=Laredo%2C+TX

They have 3 christian bookstores, what I assume is a spanish language bookstore, "Bargain Book", and the intreaguingly named "books trading LLC".

[derby378]

12. Would any of them stock Carl Sagan or James Randi?

Dang, that's rough news for Laredo.

[quakerboy]

13. Bargain book sounds promising.

and Book trading llc just might. I found it impossible to believe that with 250,000 residents had no small bookstores, or used bookstores.

Hows the library there, I wonder?

[WolverineDG]

18. Very true

I live here & we've been demanding a "real" bookstore for years. Barnes & Noble keeps promising one, but never delivers.

"Bargain Book" is one of those free local shopper newspapers, btw, & not a book store.

dg

[quakerboy]

20. Ah. I will have to remember that if I am ever in your town

looking for a bookstore.

[Jkid]

15. Doesn't Laredo have libraries?

[WolverineDG]

19. Yes, and the streets are paved AND

we have indoor plumbing.

:eyes:

We even have a cute little blog (actually there's more than 1 blog about Laredo :gasp: )

http://www.lasanbe.com/2009/12/ills-of-city.html

dg

[Paladin]

21. Get 'Em, Wolverine...... (n/t)

[Ishoutandscream2]

23. Ha! Brilliant

Us Texicans don't fancy no book learnin' Gotta get on mah horse and check out mah oil well.

[LeftinOH]

17. They have a library system -thats what matters n/t

[kwassa]

22. well, we killed off Crown Books, a Borders and Waldens books in this town

Still a Barnes and Noble left in our gunsights.

We don't buy books. We rent $1 DVDs at the grocery store!

[deucemagnet]

24. Well that's just depressing.

I was all ready to snark on this story, but it turns out to be just plain sad. :(

[mnhtnbb]

25. Can you imagine? I was just at the Barnes &Noble 10 minutes away

this morning. I can't imagine living somewhere without a bookstore.

[TheMightyFavog]

26. Marinette, WI lost its B. Dalton last year. Due to the presence of a B&N in Green Bay.

Very sad. The B. Dalton there had been with the local mall from the day it opened.

Fortunatley for Marinette, there's a small independent bookstore/tobbaconist downtown, and a great used bookstore across the river in Menominee, MI.